Eric Schmidt and Larry Page play the blame game at Google Zeitgeist. (Source: TechRadar)

Larry Page says that battery should last for a day if apps aren't overworking the processor

Google's
Android platform may be the hottest player on the cell phone market,
having recently passed
Apple in the U.S. market, but it's by no means the perfect
platform. Recently there have been concerns
about the battery life of Android smartphones, which
reportedly isn't measuring up to the rival iPhone's.

The top
executives at Google tackled
that issue at Google Zeitgeist, Google's outreach summit for
developers. Google's co-founder Larry Page blamed app
developers, stating, "I have noticed there are a few people who
have phones where there is software running in the background that
just sort of exhausts the battery quickly. If you are not getting a
day, there is something wrong."

Google CEO Eric Schmidt
chimed in, clarifying the issue on battery drain. He stated,
"The primary consumer of the battery life on these phones is the
transmit/receive circuit. So tuning that and obviously figuring out a
way to not use too much of that extends your battery life. And
people bring in applications that are not particularly smart about
that, which is what Larry is trying to get at."

Mr.
Page quipped back, "We can give you a bigger battery probably.
I'll see you afterwards."

The concerning thing is that
according to some reports, Android's battery life is draining rather
quickly even when in standby or idle -- with no apps running (aside
from the core phone apps) and no data being transmitted.
Fortunately for Google, these reports seem to be putting little
damper on Android phone sales.

Android
2.2 is about to make its debut, bringing with it Flash
(hopefully that doesn't cause further battery
issues). And the hot HTC
EVO 4G, the world's first 4G smartphone, will make its debut on
the Sprint network early next month.

"Well, we didn't have anyone in line that got shot waiting for our system." -- Nintendo of America Vice President Perrin Kaplan